


This There Is

by rocketgirl2



Category: Castle
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-28
Updated: 2010-02-28
Packaged: 2017-10-17 02:29:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/171968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rocketgirl2/pseuds/rocketgirl2
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kate doesn't want to admit it, but she's gotten kind of used to having Castle around</p>
            </blockquote>





	This There Is

**Author's Note:**

> Rough and unbeta'd. Thanks to the lovely mods at [](http://community.livejournal.com/castleland/profile)[**castleland**](http://community.livejournal.com/castleland/) for hosting the comm and giving me more productive ways to waste my time.

Kate doesn't want to admit it, but she's gotten kind of used to having Castle around. Even likes having him there, but there's no way she's going to say that. It might give him the idea that she wants him to stay—and, okay, she _does_ , but that's beside the point. The point is more that she doesn't completely hate him anymore. She doesn't care what else is going on with him.

Given the fact that Kate's feelings for Castle only border on not-hate, it's quite alarming how well he knows her. She's spent her whole life so far—or at least the past few years of it—convincing herself that no one knew what went on in her head. Castle quickly dispelled that notion, and while she didn't count that as knowing her back when it first happened—now he sort of does. And it's not just that he's now seen parts of her he'd never imagined, or at least had the decency not to put in his book. It's the things that she only tells her friends, and he's...God. Richard Castle's not a friend, is he?

Kate doesn't bother asking anyone else the question—she has the feeling she'd just be giving all of them a chance for an "I told you so." Lanie's been waiting ages for one of those, and Kate doesn't want to give her the satisfaction now. Not until it's something really big that happens, at least, like the day that Lanie keeps telling her about where she'll finally decide she wants to settle down and okay, she is not going there now. Friends is okay. Settling down—be it with Castle or the other man she hasn't met yet that she'll get along with better—is still quite a ways off.

In the end, Kate spends so much time thinking about it that she ends up accidentally mentioning it to Castle. Not outright, but in the way she deals with anything in which she was wrong: slight awkwardness masked by a threat of violence.

Castle doesn't say anything too ridiculous, just gives her that _look_ that means he's storing this in his mind for later, and he'll never stop teasing her about it once the perfect situation arrives.

That's not too comforting a thought, and when Lanie comes over later with ice cream and a potential shoulder to cry on, Kate finds herself complaining more about Castle than anything else. Given, part of that probably has to do with the fact that she's trying to put everything else out of her mind, but it's still a bit...well, not something she'd ever imagined herself doing.

Lanie listens patiently, then laughs and gets in her, "I told you so," before Kate throws her a injured/threatening look and Lanie adjusts her demeanor so she's appropriately sober. Kate's careful to not bring up Castle again for the rest of the night, and gets on with feeling guilty and victimized because of what happened earlier that day. She gets away with it.

*

Once she's recovered from the shock of killing a man and the pain she feels for having lost the way on her mother's case again, she does some more serious thinking. This time she doesn't mention any of it to Lanie, because she's well aware of the fact that she's rather biased and she doesn't want anyone to point this out. What she does say to Lanie is, "I need to date," and Lanie gives her a look that says, _oh-honey-don't-do-this-to-yourself-did-he-hurt-you-again-are-you-out-of-your-mind?_

Beckett chooses to ignore the questions and Lanie doesn't say them out loud, just hooks her up with an apparently stunning fireman who will knock Castle right out of her mind.

(Neither of them say this, though Kate's sure they're both thinking it.)

*

She goes on the date. It's at a bad time, as she's so close to cracking the case, and it's at a bad place, because Castle turns up there as well, but as Lanie promised, her date is gorgeous. She definitely doesn't miss the jealous looks Castle is throwing his way—not that it matters.

Dinner is...okay. He's polite enough, even has a certain sort of charm, but her mind's not really at the table, and he's not following her. She compulsively checks her phone to make sure it's on, because she's sure that any minute now, she'll get the call that will clear everything up. At last, it rings; she tries her best to not look excited—or even the least bit pleased—as she leaves the table to answer it.

It ends up being not the call she'd hoped for, and though Castle comes to check in with her, they still can't solve the case. She resigns herself to finishing the date (and since when did it become a chore to eat dinner with an utterly gorgeous, perfectly polite man?) instead of engaging in the usual adventures that seem to happen on every case thanks to Castle. Eventually, her phone rings again; she's surprised to see Castle leave his date once again because he must be running low on (believable) excuses, so she's glad that this call is The One. She shouldn't be surprised when it's Castle's random trivia that helps them find the missing piece, but she refuses to admit that he's helpful on a regular enough basis for her to be used to it.  As they leave to arrest the suspect, Kate notices that their dates even decide to eat dinner together when it becomes clear neither Castle nor Beckett will be coming back. The two look happy together, so Kate considers it a good night as she and Castle head out to a place where she's much more in her element.

*

It's a late night. They happen in this business, though not so often as they used to; before she'd gained a shadow, Kate had been notorious for staying far past any reasonable hour. This time, though, she's filled with a sense of accomplishment because she's actually gotten something done. Castle, flip as always after they finish a case, mentions that he missed dinner. Kate tries not to roll her eyes because she knows what's coming and the word _no_ is already forming on her tongue. And then Castle mentions something about a burger joint that she hasn't been to in awhile, and says something about milkshakes, and Kate finds herself saying something inane about how a milkshake does sound good instead of what she'd planned to, and, well. Milkshakes it is.

*

When she finally gets home, Kate is oddly happy. Lanie calls her to find out about her date, and after receiving a strict admonishment for "staying out so late, honey, isn't that a bit much for the first date?" she launches instead into the story of how they solved the case, and then she and Castle just went for some food afterwards, so it's not like she was, you know.

In the silence that follows, she swears she can hear the look of _food-with-Castle, uh-_ huh that Lanie almost certainly has on her face.

True to form, Kate says nothing.

"Girl, you realize you just ditched the man I set you up with for a date with Castle?" Lanie asks.

"It wasn't a date! We were just finishing up the case and we wanted dinner," protests Kate. "Besides, it's not like he..." she trails off as she realized that Castle had, in fact, paid the bill before she could protest. Oh.

This time, Kate knows it's an _I-told-you-so_ look that Lanie is trying to give her through the phone.

"I didn't really mean to let him pay," she protests weakly, and knows that if word of this gets out, she'll never hear the end of it. Hell, Castle will probably beat it into the ground, being him, but at least that'll give her an excuse to say no the next time. Too bad she kind of enjoyed it.

"Girl, when are you going to get over yourself and admit that you like him?" asks Lanie, and Kate's a bit lost in thought, so it doesn't register for a moment.

"What? I— _no_ —" Kate splutters when she realizes exactly what Lanie's accusing her of; she hears a laugh and then Lanie says, "Tell me your answer tomorrow," and hangs up.

Kate puts the phone down a little harder than necessary because she's fairly certain that she promised herself to never actually care about Castle. Like that hadn't been hopeless from the start.

Thing about Castle is, Kate's still not quite sure about him. It's not that he's hard to read; she figured out the way he hides his sincerity behind false levity and makes up stories so he doesn't have to give away too much of himself, but every once in awhile, he'll come out with something completely unexpected. So far, most of these revelations have been good surprises, but Kate's waiting for the one that's not because she knows it's in there.

She's always found the sense of mystery surrounding him annoying (especially because she apparently had none of it herself), but now she has to admit that it's made her curious—and who would have ever thought that she'd fall prey to such a cliché?—but she has and that's that. To her, Castle's become less of an annoyance and more of an enigma; a puzzle she can crack if only she bits the right points.

Until she manages it, she won't know how she really feels about Castle—but she likes the parts of the man that she can see now, and she won't mind sticking around to learn about the rest. As for Castle, he's picked up a tendency to drop important things into regular conversation as if they're inconsequential, and though he rarely tells her anything if she asks him outright, the fact that she knows anything about him shows that he trusts her.

Right now, whatever the two of them have consists of too many days together at work, small things read off each other's faces, and one free burger with a milkshake. Admittedly, it doesn't seem like much, but these things never do from afar; Kate knows that what they have behind all their grandstanding, is a beginning. The beginning of what, she doesn't know, but if she waits long enough, she figures she'll find out.

**Author's Note:**

> Concrit is lovelovelove.


End file.
